Show HN: Top HN Growth Hackers - <AUTHOR> http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/users&q=growth+hacker&sortby=karma+desc&start=0 Folks please don't misinterpret the data. It's just an attempt to list all the growth hackers on HN. I am sure the big names are missing here. Kindly drop in your details below. <comment><USER2> I can't wait until the term "growth hacker" goes out of style.

HN is so averse to anything related to marketing, conversion optimization, or anything else similar to such practices that a whole new title has emerged simply so no one has to grimace when saying they need to hire a "marketer".

Call a spade a spade: growth hacker == marketer. Yes, they use data to lead their decision making process and are more empirical than traditional mad men style marketers, but that by no means warrants a whole new job title.

Growth hackers are just good marketers using the data and tools available to them.

<comment><USER3> Actually they are not just "marketing people". They top growth hackers are often full-stack developers (Jesse Farmer, Matt Humphrey, Jim Young, Mike Greenfield, Dan Martell, Danielle Morrill, Ivan Kirgin etc).

This is not inbound marketing but building product that, at its core, is focused on growth. LinkedIn, Zynga, Quora, Twitter, and Facebook all have growth teams.

Do you know Dropbox's brilliant referral strategy? That was the brainchild of Sean Ellis (growth hacker), Ivan Kirigin (growth hacker), and Dropbox leadership.

<comment><USER2> The goal of a marketer is to grow a customer base. That's what these growth hackers are doing, they're just doing it in a more technically advanced way via data confirmation and split testing.

Referral strategies have been around for decades, the Dropbox guys didn't hack anything they just applied an old principle to a new technology.

Growth hacker and marketer are synonymous titles.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> OK, now somebody tell me how "growth hacker" is, specifically, different than just saying "marketer" or "marketing strategist?" Not to take anything away from the growth hackers, but I'm curious if this is just a meme, or if there's some actual substance to what a "growth hacker" does that's unique compared to other positions.

<comment><AUTHOR> Check these threads

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4309345> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4436034> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4069417> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4059580> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4104510> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4297857> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4069417> <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4104510>

<comment><USER4> OK, so a marketer who uses scripts to automate things, and is very data focused. Got it. Not sure this justifies creating a new title, but these are marketing people we're talking about...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Just updated my profile to include "Growth Hacker". Curious to see how long it takes before I'm officially the Top one here.

Just nobody ask me what the term means, ok?

<comment><USER6> Ditto. Sorry ;-)

<comment><AUTHOR> haha, Thank you for doing it so. These days I have been going through the jobs section at HN, its kind of frustrating to see all the time some job openings with 'Growth Hacker' title listed for days. But isn't it true every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Maybe it's just chance that two meta-HN posts (Top HN ...) show up on the front page today, but it seems like a lot all of a sudden...

<comment><USER8> I propose a new law: An observation of the form "Maybe <counter-argument>, but <observation>" can probably be adequately dismissed with <counter-argument>.</comment></comment>


Show HN: RebilderU – Learn with a near perfect memory - <AUTHOR> http://www.rebilderu.com

<comment><USER2> This starts off similar to the "mind palace" from the BBC TV series Sherlock Holmes. And gets very detailed and interesting. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci)

From the site:

Step 1 - Find a place: We start by preparing your spatial memory. To do this, you need to choose an actual place or building that you're very familiar with. This could be your home, work, school, or any place that you can close your eyes and imagine or "see" in detail ...

</comment><comment><USER3> There is a book called "Moonwalking with Einstein" that talks about memory techniques in a very readable and entertaining way.

This site looks to be based on the same techniques (Memory Palace AKA Method of Loci) that are described in the book.

<comment><AUTHOR> Great book. "The Art of Memory" by Frances Yates is also a fascinating read. Chronicles the memory palace technique along its entire 2300 year history in popular culture.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> If there's no charge for the first two weeks, why make me enter my payment information? Just lock me out after the trial's up - if this works as advertised, I'll plunk down my dollars in a heartbeat.

<comment><AUTHOR> Fair point. I suppose with a such a new method the barriers to signing up need to be as minimal as possible. Give us a few hours and we'll try to have a trial system up by tomorrow or the weekend

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Maybe you should allow the user to test the product without having to go through the account creation process? You have no idea how tedious it is for me to see yet another account create form.

<comment><USER6> I disagree. Account creation is very important to building a client book of business. There should be two options: 1) Sign up with Facebook/Google+ or 2) Enter only first name and email address. Other information can be gathered at a later date.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> This looks promising -- or I was misled by another one of those "weird techniques".

<comment><AUTHOR> The technique was used for about 2300 years and is the primary method used by modern memory champions. Essentially, we're just simplifying the process of using it to learn. In other words, we organize all the information logically and make it easy to create mnemonic images, which traditionally, have been the largest barriers to learning this way.</comment></comment>


A community-driven manual for Node.js - <AUTHOR> http://nodemanual.org/latest/

<comment><USER2> The original community driven rocket-fuel for node.js:

<http://docs.nodejitsu.com> <http://github.com/nodejitsu/docs>

<comment><USER3> Community-driven manuals and best practices are always welcome additions and IMHO the easiest-to-find ways to learn a topic.

Keep up the good work guys.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> cloud9 is good, for me somehow it's too slow to use in real.</comment>


Fend Off Gold-diggers - Here's How - <AUTHOR> http://io9.com/#!5752408/mathematicians-figure-out-how-to-fend-off-gold+diggers-+-with-game-theory

<comment><AUTHOR> It's always good to be prepared. Because the plan is to be filthy rich in the near future, and singledom has its navigational hazards.</comment>


The Burger Lab: How to Make Perfect Thin and Crisp French Fries - <AUTHOR> http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-how-to-make-perfect-mcdonalds-style-french-fries.html <comment><USER2> My weekend plans have changed... I'm making these fries! I really enjoyed the article. Quite technical, with a bit of plant biology thrown in. When the fries are frozen, it changes the cell structure internally and when deep dried the second time makes the inside fluffy. As the article mentions, freezing causes the moisture inside the potatoes to form sharp and jagged crystals, damaging the internal cell structure of the potato, thereinby releasing moisture when heated up again.</comment>


Steam Machine Teardown - <AUTHOR> http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Steam+Machine+Teardown/20473 <comment><USER2> This is the first console I've ever been interested in actually buying. I've always refused to buy devices that don't allow you to write and install your own software (I don't count hacks on them, so this is the first console that's actually open enough to meet my criteria. The nice thing is that this makes a pretty good off the shelf home theater PC even if I never actually use it for gaming.

<comment><USER3> These are living-room PCs, not consoles.

<comment><USER4> I always laugh when I see 'PC' because I take it at is literal meaning - 'Personal Computer' \- which always makes me wonder what about apple products, consoles, or even mobile phones makes them not either personal or computers. They all seem to be computers, they all seem pretty personal to me...

<comment><USER5> PC is a holdover from the popular IBM Personal Computer running Microsoft's PC DOS (later MS-DOS). IBM made PC a brand name in direct competition with Apple. When other companies started copying IBM, they made IBM PC Compatible devices and peripherals, generally with an x86 processor. By the 90's, "IBM PC Compatible" meant "an x86 processor running Windows", still in direct competition with Apple.

So even though Apple uses x86 processors and technically it is a personal computer, "PC" still refers to the old brand name that is synonymous with Wintel. Apple has personal computers, Microsoft has Personal Computers.

<comment><USER6> Well, even Apple computers are IBM PC compatible nowadays, and today outside of a few exceptions it is difficult to make x86 computers that are not IBM PC compatible at the hardware level.

<comment><USER5> As mentioned in my closing statement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Does anyone remember Infinium Labs and the Phantom[1]? I'm not at all trying to make vaporware accusations. I just can't believe it's been 10 years.

[1] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_Entertainment)

<comment><USER8> What is the point of bringing that up here?

<comment><USER7> The Phantom was taking the same approach pretty much. Off the shelf PC parts and digital copies of games. Just interesting to see how much and how little changes in a decade.

<comment><USER9> Or how different doing the same approach can be with a successful, multibillion dollar company driving it.

<comment><USER10> Are we talking about the Steambox or the Xbox?

<comment><USER11> Xbox One has unified memory with the GPU, which you can't get on PC (aside from via integrated intel graphics).

<comment><USER10> Xbox (2001) was pretty much a PC.

<comment><USER12> The first Xbox also had unified memory. If it was that similar to a PC, you'd expect there to be several good Xbox emulators around.

<comment><USER13> No, you wouldn't. There aren't even PC emulators that include 3d graphics, only emulators that provide graphics card passthrough or provide software to install inside the emulator to pass high-level graphics commands to the host's OpenGL implementation. Nobody has a binary-compatible GeForce (or Radeon) emulator.

<comment><USER12> The unified memory enabled developers to practically start using the GPU for things other than rendering. This in turn places higher requirements on an emulator.

None of the emulators you see today existed before someone sat down and started writing them. Your point about PC emulators is irrelevant since if you control the guest OS, it's just much more practical to install a pass-through driver.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Basically just a small form PC. Pretty much every component that will be messed with is just an off-the-shelf part. Not really any surprises here, but it's nice that it's all confirmed.

<comment><USER15> Over the years, I've tried a few times to design a gaming capable PC that would easily fit in a suitcase and not make as much noise as a 747. I never found cases with a form factor like that with internal power supplies, and which will fit, power and cool a mid-to-high range (~€180) graphics card.

The other components are easy of course.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong, because I'm definitely in the market for something like this. More than 50% of my gaming time happens when I take time off - which usually means I'm visiting family for a few weeks, and taking anything bigger than this on a plane or train is not realistic. I was hoping Thunderbolt might solve the problem with external GPUs, but right now that seems more trouble than it's worth.

<comment><USER16> You could try building a custom PC into a hard-shell travel case. I believe there are also ITX or micro ATX cases that can accommodate a 400+ watt PSU for powering a GPU in that range.

<comment><USER15> _You could try building a custom PC into a hard-shell travel case._

I tried that, many years ago. I'll be the first to admit I'm not especially good at working metal, so it was somewhat crude. Keeping everything safely in place inside, and ensuring sufficient thermal flow ended up too much of a challenge for me. The thing only ran stably when I left it open, and eventually a heatsink came loose during travel. Might be easier with today's more efficient/better designed components, and with a bit of hindsight. Still, very much a major project.

 _I believe there are also ITX or micro ATX cases that can accommodate a 400+ watt PSU for powering a GPU in that range._

Every 6-12 months I review the market on these. You can indeed get ITX cases which will take a graphics card. Generally, the form factor is the "cube" kind (well, square-ish front face), around 20x22x35cm. (~15 litres) I find this much harder to transport safely (e.g. by packing clothes around it in a suitcase) than the flat, "VCR-shaped" arrangement, with the graphics card on a 90° riser. The ones on the market also tend to waste space on optical drives, multiple hard drive bays, etc. and often have external PSUs (not necessarily a bad thing, but often they don't make the case any smaller).

The Steam Machine prototypes are apparently only around 7.5x31x31cm. That's less than 8 litres, including the PSU.

Last time I looked into this was in Spring, so maybe things have improved since then. Specific suggestions welcome.

<comment><USER16> It sounds like you're far ahead of me on research into and attempted implementations of small form factor PCs. My limited experience came from tangential, coincidental exposure while researching ARM-based single-board computers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> $500 video card, huh? After complaining that $500 for the XBone was a little pricey (I bought one anyway), building my own got just a tad less appealing. I will be interested to see how much volume pricing brings down the final price at release.

<comment><USER18> That GPU is 3x faster than the one in Xbox One. Also, if you cared so much about performance/price, you should've gotten a PS4, which has a performance to price ratio of 1.8:1 compared to the Xbox One (1.8 Gflops/$400 vs 1.2 Gflops/$500), and you can play all games at 1080p.

<comment><USER17> I never mentioned price/performance at all. I also don't know anyone at Sony that can get me PS4 games at half price, so there's TCO and more than just the initial price. And my TV is 720p, so 1080p doesn't matter right now. Other than that, you were spot-on with your assumptions.

<comment><USER19> Lol :)

Anyway, this is just one config for the SteamBox. Each beta tester has a different hardware config I'm pretty sure, from real cheap, up to an absolute beast. They did that because that's the plan with the OEMs too

From my research, you'll be able to get or build an SB yourself cheaper than a next gen console with the same power at least. I'm excited by that!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> My goodness, that thing has a PS/2 keyboard port. Maybe I can drag my first- generation Microsoft natural keyboard out of retirement.

<comment><USER21> Some gamers still prefer PS/2 if given the choice, even though there's little technical advantage. Although their most cited reason (key rollover) isn't valid; the keyboard determines how many simultaneous key presses it will transmit over USB.

<comment><USER22> [http://superuser.com/questions/16893/do-usb-or- ps-2-keyboard...](http://superuser.com/questions/16893/do-usb-or- ps-2-keyboards-respond-faster)

PS/2 keyboards observationally are known to have a bit less latency. Since there are a ton of variables at play (keyboard controller, USB poll rate, PS/2 interrupt queuing, etc.) it's hard to evaluate just how much the difference will be with any given setup.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> The pc hardware is the least interesting part. What really matters is how well the controller works with PC gamers and is the OS good enough for a TV.

</comment><comment><USER24> a coworker got into the beta and I got to play with the controller for a little bit yesterday. I _really_ like the concept of the touch pads, especially as a big FPS person. Analog sticks just can't compare to a mouse, but the touch pad will make me consider switching some gaming to the living room. [http://twitpic.com/dp50dp](http://twitpic.com/dp50dp)

<comment><USER25> Make a video/report and post it on Hacker News!

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> I hope 3 things happen

1) SteamOS is very successful along with Steam Machine

2) Windows is knocked out as a gaming platform

3) SteamOS users will be less annoying than Xbox and PS3 users

<comment><USER27> _2) Windows is knocked out as a gaming platform_

I will cheer for Windows demise only when GOG starts selling their games for Steam OS.

<comment><USER28> A good chunk on GOG re DosBox games so shouldn't these run in SteamOS already? There is a DosBox for Linux, isn't there?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Why would ifixit knock off a point due to a full PC in a small form factor being a tight fit? Doesn't seem to make any sense.

<comment><USER30> It's not just the tight fit, it's that without knowing/remembering the proper cable routing you might not be able to get everything to fit back in the case after taking it apart.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> What the hell is a 32 bit processor doing on a simple button/light daughterboard?

<comment><USER32> They're dirt fucking cheap, is why. Last I looked, $0.80 a piece. Why screw around with an 8-bit AVR when it's _more_ expensive and you're plugged into the wall and don't care about power?

(Oh, and I'll add a tradeoff: the chips are cheap, but they are not as easy to get up and running as an AVR. Programmers and a bunch of Windows software seems to be required; I've given up every time I've tried to use one :)

<comment><USER33> Replace a bunch of $0.80 parts with $0.30 parts in any consumer device, and the difference on your profit margin tends to be quite noticeable.

<comment><USER32> They made like 300 of these, so that would have saved them $150.

<comment><USER33> Sure, but it's meant to prototype a machine that will be produced in millions - it adds up in volume, and it's not really a drop-in replacement, you have to engineer the whole subsystem with the cheaper parts in mind.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I don't care too much for gaming, but I'm in the market for a CUDA box, and this looks pretty much ideal...

<comment><USER35> Same, but since I care mostly about double precision performance I won't be having much fun with the GTX 780.

</comment></comment><comment><USER36> Damn, awesome specs. I also love the subtle unit marker, very cool idea.

</comment><comment><USER37> Very nice little box, considering it's all COTS stuff save for the chassis, LED button and controller.

I imagine these will be available with a range of CPU's and GPU's come release day.

</comment><comment><USER38> So based on those off the self component whats the total value of the box? about 1000$?

<comment><USER37> Hard to say, since each beta box comes with different goodies:

"The 300 prototype units will ship with the following components: GPU: some units with NVidia Titan, some GTX780, some GTX760, and some GTX660 CPU: some boxes with Intel i7-4770, some i5-4570, and some i3 RAM: 16GB DDR3-1600 (CPU), 3GB GDDR5 (GPU) Storage: 1TB/8GB Hybrid SSHD Power Supply: Internal 450w 80Plus Gold Dimensions: approx. 12 x 12.4 x 2.9 in high"

<comment><USER39> The GPU RAM almost certainly varies with what GPU you end up with. Titan 6GB, 780 3GB, 760 2GB, 660 2GB.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> If Valve really wants to compete with consoles, they need a wireless controller. I go back and play the old PS1/2 and Gamecube occasionally, and the toughest adjustment is going back to a wired controller.

<comment><USER41> The beta versions are wired. The plan is for them to be wireless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER42> "The board is wrangled by an NXP LCP11U24F 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller."

I wonder if this could be re-purposed (just for interest's sake).

<comment><USER43> Almost certainly; that's the same processor as used in one model of the mbed, all you have to do is find the JTAG/SWD on the board. The default firmware may be code-protected, but there are ways round that.

<comment><USER44> I wonder if it's coded using the mbed, since the controller might be going to be sold in volumes?</comment></comment></comment>


Github Resume Generator - <AUTHOR> http://resume.github.com <comment><USER2> It's not bad, however it doesn't include my contributions to open source projects just the repositories that are in-fact mine. If I was reviewing someone else's resume I'd want to see those things.

<comment><USER3> Exactly. Not to mention that it doesn't even include forked repositories in your profile.

For example, I've got commit rights to repositories living on other people's profiles, I use my company's Organization profile to publish open-source software and I use my personal profile only when I'm working on patches for others (fork -> push -> pull request -> delete)...

...and my _resume_ generated using this tool is just rubbish.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> On the similar note, try this LinkedIn Resume builder - <http://resume.linkedinlabs.com>. It's pretty cool and useful too!

</comment><comment><USER5> It'd be cool if it could retrieve projects you contribute to actively but you don't own.

<comment><AUTHOR> Yep it's in the list of future features if the GH-API allows it :-)

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We are doing something pretty similar but we take info from other sources like sourceforge or google code and also from github. It's called Masterbranch (<http://www.masterbranch.com>)

PS I have another account here but I can't log in :(

</comment><comment><USER7> really cool, but it seems it does not consider organizations of which the user is a member

<comment><AUTHOR> Not yet, I'm planning on adding a few things like (see the note on <http://resume.github.com>) and more.

Feel free to fork and modify! :) I'd be happy to include any decent contribution that makes better resumes.

<comment><USER7> oh sorry, I had not seen the note. To be honest, I do not see it now either but at least I found the github project :D <https://github.com/resume/resume.github.com>

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> The "sometimes I blog at" links don't seem to work; for example, on <http://resume.github.com/?rupa>

<comment><AUTHOR> Good catch :) Fixed and pushed.

<comment><USER9> Seems like it's not a cache issue, just the fix doesn't quite work.

I'm seeing the updated version of <http://resume.github.com/js/githubresume.js> (with the changes shown at [https://github.com/resume/resume.github.com/commit/f046b8af6...](https://github.com/resume/resume.github.com/commit/f046b8af61b3015f1e2d85f35c977dd26b6f2d45)) but it's still not working quite right.

For example <http://resume.github.com/?rupa> is generating this HTML:

      I blog at http://un.ix.io

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pretty cool. I wonder how it decides which repos to show though. It listed my dotfiles repo but not Leiningen, which is the #1 most-forked Clojure project.

<comment><USER11> The page states it is only your first 30 created repos; did you have 30 before Leiningen?

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> Very nice. Please fix: "repository by it's sum of watchers" => "repository by its sum of watchers".

No one wants to have a typo in their resumé. :-)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah good point :-) Should be fixed now, I just pushed to the repo.

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> Pretty neat. I also recently work on something similar. <http://pdfcv.com>

<comment><USER14> Took me a minute to figure out why it thought my github account had perl in it. Unfortunate that perl and prolog both use the the .pl extension. I think GitHub makes the same mistake, or did when I put the prolog stuff up anyway.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> I recognise this template, I used it for a crappy filler cv I made a while ago. Pretty neat idea!

<comment><USER16> So did I, it's from here - [http://thingsthatarebrown.com/blog/2009/05/sample- resume-tem...](http://thingsthatarebrown.com/blog/2009/05/sample-resume- template/)

All modesty aside, he should mention where he got the template from.

<comment><AUTHOR> Very good point, I think the footer got lost in some git stash. I've re-added it now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> Ok everyone, I've added a basic listing of member organisations but the API seems to be a tad erratic and sometimes doesn't load and some other times does.

Please let me know if something is completely wrong and so I'll revert it.

</comment><comment><USER17> Languages and frameworks could also be listed in the order of SLOC.

</comment><comment><USER18> I'm getting an odd behavior - every single click seems to lead to the "UH OH :(" page. (Ubuntu 10.10, Firefox 3.6.13)

<comment><USER19> Same here. It worked with Opera 11.01, so it seems to be a browser specific bug.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> What do you think about printing names in all caps? Why wouldn't it be better to use upper and lower case?

</comment><comment><USER21> Don't add a period unless there is body text, and it doesn't already end in a punctuation mark.

</comment><comment><USER22> More useful than I thought it would be. Cheers!

</comment><comment><USER23> Brilliant idea!

</comment><comment><USER24> Cool but you should post some examples.

<comment><USER25> Check it again, there are examples for you to peruse. Or you can try this one: <http://resume.github.com/?raganwald>

</comment></comment><comment><USER26> This is pretty awesome!

</comment><comment><USER27> really cool idea! looking forward to where it goes.</comment>


Ask HN: For every article you read, how many do you save for later? - <AUTHOR>

This question came to me when I was checking out Aaron Swartz's Amazon wishlist. Aaron had 1,253 items on his wishlist and 139 items on his Finished Reading list so it appears he found about 9 books he planned on reading for each one that he read.<p>With apps like Readability it's often easy to see how many articles or blog posts you've read vs how many you plan to read. Do you find yourself saving things to read later at an unsustainable pace? What's your ratio? <comment><USER2> I've organically come to a system that works pretty well for me.

I browse HN, reddit, Zite (iPad), and sometimes click on links in my fb feed. That's my 'inbox'. Then:

1\. Anything I feel like reading right away, I read. 2\. an actual article, usually more long-form, I add to my instapaper list. 3\. an article that might be interesting, but not right away, or anything else that is worth saving, but not useful right away, I add to Pocket. 4\. for any comment pages, or articles that somehow don't go through step 2 or 3, I add them to my OneTab list (by far my most-used chrome plugin). Often these are just things I can't read right away, but I'll probably look at later in the day, or things that instapaper can't handle (HN comments). 5\. anything that really stands out, I either add to my OmniFocus inbox, or to my Wunderlist inbox (Because I don't have OF on my phone).

With that done, here's how I process stuff: 1\. when at my computer, I tend to first check my OneTab backlog. I open a few tabs, and read through them. This is generally during work breaks or lazy moments. 2\. On the road, particularly short commutes, I read instapaper articles. I intentionally kept myself from getting internet on my phone so I'll keep from aimless browsing. Interesting snippets or articles then go to my Wunderlist inbox for later processing. 3\. On longer trips, or significant downtime, I generally look at Instapaper for the 'better' material. 4\. every once in a while, or when I'm reminded of something I read a while back, I check my Pocket 'dump' for the relevant material.

All in all, this kind of just started happening through use. I didn't agonize over a workflow, and I'm not sure it's optimal. But it works pretty well.

</comment><comment><USER3> I actually have a different workload. Rather than read it, and save for later, I add my links to Pocket first, then read from there. That lets me absorb far more possibility - then read when I feel like it.

Plus, it makes the subway commute kick!

</comment><comment><USER4> For me, there's always a 'toread' backlog. Then when I'm in the mood, I feast.

If the article is _really_ important, I convert it to PDF using PrintFriendly.com and save it to my Basecamp. Otherwise, I save it to Pocket for a snack later.

</comment><comment><USER5> I read somewhere by one of the developers behind those read it later apps that its not uncommon for people to have over 10,000 unsaved items never read. I'm fairly certain its pretty common behavior.

<comment><USER2> I have tons of articles on Instapaper that are really great, and usually I power through a bunch of them on long trips or vacations. It feels like a security blanket.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> Seconded danso on Pinboard. It's simple and fast so I tend to save quite a few everyday from HN and other places.

</comment><comment><USER7> For "articles", nearly none; I save a copy of about 80% of articles I actually read and save essentially none for reading later.

Of some high end, long PDF files, say, of books, I glance at good descriptions and save a copy if the content looks good. For the famous CLRS, I read through it quickly, saw a lot of poorly done material, but did keep a copy.

For such PDF files, my intention is to have them for reference later if needed; otherwise rarely do I have any intention of actually reading them.

For high quality books I haven't read but would like to, I have a big but old stack. But mostly those books were to help my career, and my career has taken another path. For that path, I have essentially nothing collected but yet to read.

</comment><comment><USER8> Pinboard has been huge for me...I almost never use the HN saved feature...not because it's bad, but because it's not good at what it does...I upvote a lot of things, sometimes things I don't plan on ever revisiting but that I think are worth praise (Show HN projects)...So it's not the saving, it's the lack of filtering.

Pinboard does some sort of Bayesian analysis to automatically tag things I bookmark, but I still add tags manually. I also take a few seconds to copy and paste the first paragraph of the article. And when I need to look up articles on Ruby, algorithms, databases, etc...I just rely on my Pinboard tags

(My public tags are here...looks like I have 800+, which is not too bad for a few years)

</comment><comment><USER9> \- 4</comment>


Building Two Mobile Apps at Once… with JavaScript - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@kpcb_edge/building-two-mobile-apps-at-once-with-javascript-bf0b70a56403 <comment><USER2> I've just spent a few days using Ionic to mockup up a front end app. It would take a few days more to create a back end and that would be a complete app. This rapid development cycle is incredible. I've got the app running in ios and android.</comment>


Kaanzi - Web Command Prompt - <AUTHOR> http://easym0de.tumblr.com/

<comment><USER2> Feature Request: I'd like to see some sort of toggle to minimize the content in the left-column and allow the command area in the right-column to cover the entire width of my window/frame. (I'm using kaanzi in multiple iframes, so repeating the left column is redundant for me...)

</comment><comment><USER2> How are you differentiating this service from yubnub?

<comment><AUTHOR> yubnub redirects you to the services it provides. Our services gives you a true command line experience. You stay focused on the command prompt at kaanzi.

<comment><USER2> Oh, that makes sense. I'll check it out.</comment></comment></comment>


New Genetic Test Asks Which Sport a Child Was Born to Play - <AUTHOR> http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/30/sports/30genetics.html?hp=&pagewanted=all <comment><USER2> While the test may give some indicators, I think this practice of trying to specialize kids for certain sports is just baloney. There are so many examples of athletes who are / were the best in their arena that certainly were not the ideal "type" for their sport. Just look at Wayne Gretzky - 6'/180lb. Barry Sanders - 5'8...

For athletes like a football quarterback, it's not even about being good at a single thing (fast-twitch sprinting). It's such a multi-dimensional position that just having fast-twitch speed is not going to guarantee you're the next Joe Montana or Tom Brady.

And finally, so many people have the talent but don't have the work ethic and drive to make the most of it. The people who are out there every single day for hours - throwing, kicking, sprinting, etc. That first 10% might be genetics, but the rest of it is blood, sweat, and working so hard some days you come home and puke.

<comment><USER3> In Malcolm Gladwell's latest book Outliers he uses hockey players as an example of how genetics (or talent) isn't necessarily a deciding factor.

Top-level Canadian hockey players are disproportionally born in the early months of a year. This is because the cutoff for deciding which league to play in is January 1st. Kids born in the first half of the year are older and bigger than the other kids. They make it onto the best teams in the best leagues and get more practices. Ultimately this advantage allows them to play professionally at a higher rate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This company has a great PR agency but not a viable business model. There is no way they can continue to generate enough sales to continue paying for top- notch PR. And the test itself is completely useless and meaningless.

The ACTN3 test is included on 23andme's test and 23andme will eat them alive without even trying. I'm sure they are laughing at this company right now.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html> is as appropriate as ever.

<comment><USER4> [http://www.thinkgene.com/novelty-dtc-genetic-testing- company...](http://www.thinkgene.com/novelty-dtc-genetic-testing-company- torpedoes-their-way-into-ny-times/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Makes me think of _Gattaca_ the movie.</comment>


Ask HN: Site hacked, where to begin?  - <AUTHOR>

I was just contacted by someone I know who came to own a well visited site in the past few years. I was asked by him to do a little bit of work for him: to switch hosts and perform some minor updates to their existing site. No problem I thought. Well, I have since learned the cause for moving hosts. The site had been hacked over the holidays and now has a threat warning from Google. A backup has been restored by the host (which still includes some badware redirects) and there is no source control or revision history.<p>The site is very large and I am still trying to get organized. Media files, multiple copies of pages with php.bak etc everywhere, horrible horrible mess. He complained about their last 'webmaster' being a nut. Yeah... Can you guys please recommend site scanners or any tools you would use to find any threats on an unfamiliar code base? I am hooked up with Google Webmaster Tools which is alright but I have found threats on pages they don't have listed. Any tips would be very appreciated. Thanks <comment><USER2> rsync and take a snapshot, don't work from the snapshot, just keep it around in case you screw up a sed/rpl/awk rm, etc. During portions after verifying that your mass replace/delete/etc was successful, take another checkpoint snapshot so that you have a known good to go back to rather than working through everything once again.

things to look for '<iframe' '<script src'

You're likely to find some script src that refer to javascript loaded from the site, check the very end of each of the existing .js files

Check the .htaccess and make sure they look sane and haven't added the ability to run other extensions as cgi scripts or php files. Check your .htaccess for any php prepends, odd mod_rewrites.

Clean up obviously dead files, i.e. the .bak files, etc. Look in the image/uploads directories for any .php files, consider putting in mod_rewrites or remove mimetypes to make sure code can't be executed in directories that should be static content.

Dump your database, again search for iframe/script that is attached to fields that shouldn't have html, i.e. category names, etc.

get webmaster tools running, it will give you a little more information about what to look for.

Now that you've gotten the easy stuff out of the way, you need to look for ways that they did this. Since you've moved hosts, you've lost some of your forensic ability since file ownerships and permissions may have changed. Now you've got to look for scripts that contain potential badware.

(r57|c99|c100)shell passthru, exec, system, eval, popen, base64_decode, rot13

Hopefully remote includes are disabled, globals should be disabled, etc.

You're going to get a lot of false positives. Once you have that list, you can weed through and probably catch them quickly. If you believe there are remote shells and you're not really sure what they are running, consider installing suhosin, look for the line in execute.c around line 1588:

goto execute_internal_bailout;

and comment that out, run it in simulation mode,

        suhosin.simulation = on
        suhosin.executor.func.blacklist = include,include_once,require_once,passthru,eval,system,popen,exec,shell_exec,mail

Check your syslog for things that are reported.

When you look for code, you'll see things like:

        eval($_COOKIE['blah']);

which allows them to execute commands, but, using a GET rather than POST so that you don't see the requests as easily in the logs. Since you're mentioning malware, it was installed somewhere, remote shells are probably the main reason, but, a lot of malware that is appended to a number of files is done through FTP. I would suggest that they change the FTP password. Definitely grep the logs for any POSTs just in case.

Not that you want to hear it, but, typically a webhost's backups are for disaster recovery, i.e. hard drive crash. If it hasn't been detected quick enough, their nightly or weekly backup could get overwritten before it is noticed.

Most of the exploits I see modify php files and add some code at the bottom through FTP, or, do a global search and replace with a remotely executed script.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I found this link on Delicious which is helpful:

<http://25yearsofprogramming.com/blog/20071223.htm>

It directed me to <http://www.unmaskparasites.com> which has helped me uncover that there is a 302 redirect on one of my pages somewhere.

</comment><comment><USER3> I'd try to get older backups from the host and diff them; hopefully _someone_ has at least one clean backup that you can try bringing up to date.

Otherwise, you can try grep'ing for known bad stuff (base64, if the attackers like encoding their stuff in that), but it's _very_ hard to recover if the attacker is good. Fortunately, most of them are not; but take a look at, say, the Obfuscated C contest for some "inspiration".

Oh, and you may want to figure out how the hack happened, too. I'm not too familiar with software for this kind of things, but I seem to recall that RATS ([https://www.fortify.com/ssa-elements/threat- intelligence/rat...](https://www.fortify.com/ssa-elements/threat- intelligence/rats.html) ?) has a PHP mode.

</comment><comment><USER4> If you're not sure what to do, then I'd suggest backing off. While I appreciate you want to find the cause you might be out of your depth. There's plenty of professional companies that could deal with something like this to audit the code for badware.

Disclaimer: I run one of said companies in Europe, but am not putting it forward here. If you're in the states you might want to give a company like Trustwave or Matasano a call.</comment>


Offer HN: I will work for free this Thursday in San Francisco - <AUTHOR>

I have an entire free day in San Francisco this Thursday, so I am farming myself out to any SF area startup who will have me. I'll do anything. No task is too large or small. You could have me move boxes, enter data, but here is a list of areas where you might find me most useful:
- Ruby on Rails programming - Startup Analytics - UX - SEO
About me: - Hacker from Wisconsin - Ruby on Rails programmer - In charge of product for Murfie.com - Participating in Startup Chile in January - Trying to make more connections to other startups
If you have nothing for me to do, I'm just as happy to drop in for 15 minutes and talk shop. I'll probably jabber about Rails, Y Combinator, Startup Chile, 3D Printing
Send me an email: southpolesteve at gmail <comment><USER2> I know Steve personally. We had lunch on Monday, actually.

I'm gonna spend all my karma here... all whopping 249 of it... and say you should take him up on this. He's one of those people who "make things happen."

</comment><comment><USER3> If you're in San Fran, take Steve up on this. He's an amazing guy who is going to really break through. The only questions are how, when, and on which fronts.

I'm actually tempted to take him up on his offer & ask him to do remote work for our Madison, WI company. ;7) Guess he foresaw the loophole: "SF area startup".

<comment><USER4> Is there a startup scene in Madison? I lived there a few years ago and _loved_ the place. It seems like it would be a great place to start a startup... and I knew there are a ton of people who are vaguely tired of their jobs at Epic.

<comment><USER5> A growing start-up scene, a number of start-ups have started in Madison but then moved to Boston or DC, but we're working on growing the resources to insure that they can stay and thrive in Madison, not just get started.

<comment><USER4> I see... good luck to you!!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I have no idea who this gentleman is but this type of offer captures the entrepreneurial 'get out there' spirit of what ycombinator felt like several years ago. Hopefully it will start the seed for something great.

<comment><USER7> I have no idea who this gentleman is either, but this type of comment captures the systemic 'good old days' spirit that has been a part of n.yC since the beginning. The more things change...

(Meant in good spirits! And also wishing OP well!)

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> Come have lunch with us! It's when we sit around and Yack anyway ;) Though, beware, any good eng talent that enters our office doors we shower with attention and attempt to recruit ;) I'll shoot you a email.

Susan co-founder, Triggit inc.

</comment><comment><USER9> This reminds me of my friend Pete's idea of holding something like a Barcamp but the whole day is just Pete teaching you stuff Pete knows (which is a lot).

The primary difference being that Pete charges a fee; this is even better!

</comment><comment><USER10> Hey Steve! I'll be out of town on Thursday but I'd love to get some startup feedback/advice over the phone! 15, 30, 45 minutes, whatever you can offer. I'll email you :)

Steven, Founder of LookupLink www.lookuplink.com

</comment><comment><USER11> Madison's _temporary_ lose is San Francisco's gain.

Don't get used to it!

</comment><comment><USER12> This is an awesome idea :}

</comment><comment><USER13> Great idea - hope you get to meet some great startups when you're out here! (Would invite you over but we're an enterprise software company - AS/Java/Python/C++)

<comment><USER14> Not sure what enterprise software company means? Must be a java/c++ thing do you namespace ur java apps MyCompany.Enterprise.Domain and so forth.. My last mentor insisted naming was number one, followed by two days of setting up a fragile jenkins server and the rezt

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> Coincidentally I'll be in SF too that day. I'm @astro on Github. Shoot me a message!

</comment><comment><USER16> email@example.com

Working on Roomeo.com!</comment>


ASK HN: I made up a word game back in high school. What do you think of it? - <AUTHOR>

I made up a word game in high school that became popular with my friends - tell me what you think. Basically, you solve for one word. The clues are words that have at least one letter from the word, in order, that have something to do with the word.
As an example, this:
---
storm
weather
drip
falling
---
would be "rain".
---
Another one:
---
advanced
expensive
portable
technology
polished
---
This one is considerably harder:
---
fur
hibernate
claws
latin
brown
omnivores
--- <comment><USER2>
      cat /usr/share/dict/words | grep '^[fur][hibernate][claws][latin][brown][omnivores]$'

Have I missed the point somewhat... :)

</comment><comment><USER3> Isn't that just Taboo?

</comment><comment><USER4> Sounds familiar...

$20,000 pyramid?</comment>


The internet war on sex is here - <AUTHOR> https://www.engadget.com/2018/12/07/the-internet-war-on-sex-is-here/ <comment><USER2> This will probably wind up going way to far and becoming overrestrictive, but at another level seems like natural reflexive response to oversexualization of the last couple of decades.

There is an interesting trend in society where gender roles and norms converge (so become more similar) alongside sex becoming more free and open.

When gender roles diverge, sex becomes more restricted and the differences between men and women are more enforced by society and communicated through culture.

Part of it is economic. In times that are very good (for the working class), usually there is enough for 1 partner (usually the woman) to stay home. When times are bad, both partners need to work, thus overlapping their spheres of living.

Peter Turchin is an academic who has written about this the last few years with data from the GFC of 2008. Interesting stuff.

</comment><comment><USER3> Remember these are all private companies and have the right to decide what content is on their platform. If you want something different, you are free to create your new own platform. However, I suspect that what happened to the "free speech" platforms will happen happen to that inthat you will get the extreme content and end up with a bad reputation and get shunned by advertisers, payment processors, etc.

<comment><USER4> Yep, you are free to make your own platform, except don't expect PayPal or any other processor to support you if you don't already fit on online networks.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "LGBTQI"

The fact that this acronym keeps changing and growing underlines how absurd it is to try to classify sexuality.

I don't think there's a winning move. Let humans be human and hope that the advertisers will come around eventually.

<comment><USER6> A bi friend of mine ended up just using QUILTBAG at some point.

Questioning

Undecided

Intersex

Lesbian

Trans

Bisexual

Asexual

Gay

It's not entirely encompassing either. For example, pansexual isn't listed.

I've always thought it sounded too much like "dirt bag" to use myself as a cis, hetero male and hence worry I'll be misunderstood as trying to make it sound derogative.</comment></comment>


Show HN: Ghost Drive – Sim Racing Using Your Car as a Controller - <AUTHOR> https://outlandnish.com/blog/ditch-the-sim-rig-use-your-car-instead/ <comment><USER2> This is awesome. Saves a lot of gas, too. I wonder how on what other car models that's possible

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Any car with electric power steering and CAN should be a good candidate for it</comment></comment>


Airbnb a big boost to NYC economy, study finds - <AUTHOR> http://www.metro.us/newyork/news/2013/10/22/airbnb-a-huge-boost-to-citys-economy-study/ <comment><USER2> This is not an independent, peer-reviewed study. It was commissioned by AirBnB. HR&A, the study's authors, point the interested to AirBnB's press release versus a full paper [1].

One would be cautioned against taking its findings seriously. I am even intrigued as to why AirBnB felt it was unnecessary or even counterproductive to release the full paper.

[1] [https://twitter.com/hraadvisors/status/393039913307758592](https://twitter.com/hraadvisors/status/393039913307758592)

<comment><USER3> The paper may be commissioned by Airbnb, but I think the fundamental findings are pretty solid. Of course I'm probably fairly biased because I'm a pretty heavy Airbnb user, with more than ten Airbnb stays in NYC in the last couple years.

From what I've experienced Airbnb has allowed me to stay in areas of the city that have few hotels or poor hotel coverage. I'm not the kind of person who enjoys Midtown. I can't stand the tourist crowds, most of the restaurants are horrible and there is no way in hell that I'm going to spend $200 a night of startup money on staying at a Midtown hotel.

So when I'm in NYC with the startup I work for I'll stay in Williamsburg at a cheap Airbnb place. Because of this I'm usually able to stay around three weeks, and during that time my money is going to local restaurants, bars, and convenience stores in Williamsburg and the LES.

All considered I probably still spend the same amount of money as your average Midtown tourist, because I stay in NYC much longer even though my expenses per day are lower than if I was staying in corporate hotels. But the important thing is that the money I do spend is going to a local resident (90% of the Airbnbs I've stayed at have been renting a room in the primary residence of the Airbnb host), and to small local businesses, not to big corporate chain hotels and chain restaurants in Midtown. I consider this to be a good thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I was fully expecting this to by a study "by Airbnb" and I wasn't disappointed:

"On behalf of Airbnb, an online service for short-term vacation rentals, HR&A conducted an economic impact assessment of Airbnb rental activities in the City of San Francisco, and is currently conducting a follow-up study of its impacts on New York City."

[http://www.hraadvisors.com/featured/economic-impacts-of- airb...](http://www.hraadvisors.com/featured/economic-impacts-of-airbnb/)

<comment><USER5> Yep. I actually think it would be valuable to have a third-party non-profit entity that provides economic impact assessments of start-ups like Uber and Airbnb, so we are backing up our regulatory policy changes on data rather than emotion or lobbying.

<comment><USER6> non-profit do you mean university? I'd rather have university do the research.

I often think non-profit is not as independent as we think. After all, a lot of non-profit are to advocate against public policy. Whereas usually university research (from multiple sources) seem to be more independent.

<comment><USER5> I agree that non-profits can and often are not independent of private influences. Universities can fall under the same influences as well, such as MIT's concrete research studies being funded and advocated by the Portland Concrete Association.

In this situation, I would have liked to see an independent non-profit or University group that was funded 50/50 by New York City and Airbnb to do the study. Perhaps you can argue that the funding arrangement is not perfect, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

<comment><USER6> You are right. Maybe we should see multiple sources. That's fair, from government to non-profit to university.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> As a New Yorker looking for an apartment I've really come to despise Airbnb. Housing has obviously always been expensive here, but it's reached new heights this year. I'm looking in Brooklyn and not only are the rents higher than I've ever seen them, but it's much more difficult than before to find a bedroom in an existing household (via craigslist, etc). All the while I encounter an increasing number of people, friends, acquaintances, friends of friends, who say they have a bedroom in their apartment that they keep open to rent out to Airbnb guests. I know this is HN and someone is going to say this is just an anecdote, and clearly that's true, but there's no doubt Airbnb is not just competing with hotels, it's also lowering housing availability in desirable neighborhoods, and likely raising prices in an already expensive rental market.

</comment><comment><USER8> This is something I see often ... a company wants to prove some positive thing about their business, so they commission a study, only to have it torn down in comments because it was they who paid for it.

I _totally_ get that it's a conflict of interest, but what alternative is there? Seems like a study of this kind is really valuable to be able to contribute to the policy conversation that's currently underway. Would the only ethical option be for AirBnB to put out a public call for someone, anyone, to do this study on their own dime? Who would do such a thing without being paid up front? Would it still be a conflict of interest if the researchers put up a crowdfunding campaign to pay for the study (even if they did so at the behest of AirBnB)?

<comment><USER3> I agree. Rather than arguing against the data in the study its easy to just use the strawman argument of "but it's paid for by Airbnb so it must be biased."

But I will say that I would like to see the actual original data in the study instead of just the numerous blog posts about the study. I did some internet searching and was unable to find the original study, just news articles about it. If we had the original study and we could see the data sources and actual data points then we could have a real discussion about whether or not the study is legitimate.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Bunch of garbage. Enabling tourists to stay in different neighborhoods doesn't grow the economy, it just shifts where some of the money is spent from midtown to downtown.

<comment><USER10> Without arguing the motivations of this "third party" study, you ignore the fact that it finds:

\- People stayed longer and spent more

\- Money ended up in individuals' hands, instead of a hotel megacorp chain

\- Much was outside Manhattan (a distinction from your claim of "midtown to downtown")

<comment><USER11> Without access to the report it seems that any discussion is difficult. I think the only thing you can say is that OP is "ignoring the fact that metro.us reported HR&A's claims to have made the following findings:"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Can anyone comment on the difference between "contributions to total spending in the city economy" and "economic activity generated in the city"? I am curious about the disparity in these two statements:

SF: _From April 2011 May 2012 guests and hosts utilizing Airbnb have contributed $56 million in total spending to San Francisco's economy_ [1]

NYC: _Over the course of a year, Airbnb generated $632 million in economic activity in New York._ [2]

Another question I have is how would the authors identify the economic contributions of AirBnB hosts in San Francisco? And/or how they would distinguish between the contributions that were the result of AirBnB and those contributions that would have happened without AirBnB?

I am aware of HR&A's motivations.[3] I am not trying to criticize the report I am interested in the actual analytical process.

[1] [http://assets.airbnb.com/press/press- releases/Economic_Impac...](http://assets.airbnb.com/press/press- releases/Economic_Impact_Study.pdf)

[2] [http://www.metro.us/newyork/news/2013/10/22/airbnb-a-huge- bo...](http://www.metro.us/newyork/news/2013/10/22/airbnb-a-huge-boost-to- citys-economy-study/)

[3] [http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html)

<comment><USER12> Apple put out similar hand-wavey figures last year: [https://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/](https://www.apple.com/about/job- creation/)

I think the point boils down to:

1) dollars paid to hosts are counted towards the city economy (ostensibly most of those would be spent in the city) -- this is direct

2) renters need to eat etc, and those monies should be counted to the economic activity -- this is indirect

<comment><USER13> >renters need to eat etc Wouldn't they have to eat regardless of where they stay?

<comment><USER12> If you are staying for a day or two, you most likely would go out and eat your meals (including breakfast). For longer stays, especially with kitchen access, you probably would buy cereal, milk, juice, and other items. If you are estimating the cost of food based on average or median restaurant, you aren't capturing the true dynamics (note: as they said in the report, the average stay is close to a week in length)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I happen to work for a company that does economic impact assessments, and I'm skeptical of this "study", to say the least (it's hard to tell w/o a link to the full paper, only a press release). Basic unanswered issues:

(1) How do you show how many guests would not have come to NY at all if AirBnB didn't exist? This is called the counterfactual. (If they would have come anyway, then hotels lose the same amount of business, leading to no net gain.) And, if money is just being shuffled from midtown to the outer boroughs, how is that a net win for NYC? Broken window fallacy, anyone?

(2) I guess you _could_ argue that NYC is better off if the same dollars are going to residents rather than corporate hotel chains (if you show higher multipliers, maybe some good externalities like supporting artists). But that's a very complex assessment in itself, likely way beyond the scope of this study. And you've got to count only _net_ benefit versus the counterfactual.

(3) Sure, AirBnB guests might stay longer and spend more (what data is that based on? Don't many people use AirBnB because it's cheaper?), but that correlation doesn't mean that some magic AirBnB pixie dust caused them to do so. And is this offset by less money spent on the lodging itself compared to an hotel?

</comment><comment><USER15> Anecdote for my sister in Texas: 2010: Started renting her house on AirBnB to build savings / side-income. 2011: Left full-time design job. 2012: Repaired house and added efficiency unit. 2013: Picking up freelance design work.

Results: She works less hours overall, but feels need to respond to AirBnB- related requests at all hours. Now has ~20% higher income but less predictability. She pays taxes. AirBnB taught her several skills necessary for entrepreneurship. Still cringes when there is a critical review.

Her local bars and cafes definitely benefit from her guests (she provides local recommendations). I suspect local hotels might be losing some but not all of the business. Her guests pay roughly 25% less than local hotels.

She also travels more now, and has built a network from people who have stayed with her. Examples: Helped plan a wedding, assisted commercial photo shoots, went for drinks when visiting former guests' cities.

</comment><comment><USER13> >Airbnb users helped prop up 4,580 jobs throughout the five boroughs

I am courious about how they calculated such precise numbers

</comment><comment><USER16> Is the report even available anywhere? Did Metro just take the claims by HR&A at face value?

</comment><comment><USER17> Don't worry. The next mayor, Bill de Blasio, will be certain to put an end to this sort of horrible monstrous abuse of the city, in the name of Affordable Housing and Tenants' Rights. :P

</comment><comment><USER18> Dumping industrial waste into the Hudson, prostitution, and the drug trade are also boosts to the local economy. Think of all the jobs! However, they are are illegal in NYC, just like Airbnb, though the externalities are much worse in those cases. The point is that most laws restrict a bit of economic freedom for other societal benefits. Think of how much cheaper housing would be if only we ditched those pesky building codes!

</comment><comment><USER19> I love airbnb, I just used them for my honeymoon (though that was in Athens, Greece).

</comment><comment><USER20> Would probably be more if everyone paid tax on those earnings.

</comment><comment><USER13> Now this post disappeared from the front page.</comment>


"Light Touch", Cable, and DSL; the Broadband Tradeoff; Importance of Antitrust - <AUTHOR> https://stratechery.com/2017/light-touch-cable-and-dsl-the-broadband-tradeoff-the-importance-of-antitrust/ <comment><USER2> The way the author compares adoption rates of Cable vs DSL is disingenuous. They are not comparable, because not everyone who can subscribe to cable internet is within range of quality DSL signals. There are limitations that slow adoption that do not come from regulation of any kind.

You can not be "for" net neutrality but "against" Title II in the current context, as striking down Title II without creating separate neutrality legislation eliminates all legally codified net neutrality, and the current administration has zero interest in doing that.

</comment><comment><USER3> The author is afraid that nn regulation would kill investment needed for increasing bandwidth.

Is that true? One principle I have is that when we have a controversial issue in the US, we should look at how other countries are handling it.

My understanding is that most developed countries have strong nn policies, and they have been expanding broadband a lot faster than the US. Anyone have the numbers to check if I am right?</comment>


Ask HN: alternative solutions for wiki - <AUTHOR>

Mediawiki, Dokuwiki... differents names, same solution (technology/mechanism): wiki.<p>Can you see some alternative solution? <comment><USER2> Moin moin [0] is widely used too, and it has a version which can run without install [1]. You can put it i.e. on a USB, and carry your wiki with you.

Also, it's interesting ikiwiki [2], which puts your wiki on git. This may be very technical, or perfect, depends on the person.

Why do you think you need alternative solutions to those you said? What do you want to solve?

Used Dokuwiki years ago and it was ok for me. Still use mediawiki at work, even I've some scripts to auto-update the wiki from the infrastructure using the mediawiki api and templates.

Mediawiki is "the wiki", the only pain comes when you want to limit permissions matching say... the groups of an ldap... and things like that. It's not impossible, but it's a pain.

There are more options [3] and comparatives [4].

[0] [http://moinmo.in](http://moinmo.in)

[1] [http://moinmo.in/PortableMoin](http://moinmo.in/PortableMoin)

[2] [http://ikiwiki.info](http://ikiwiki.info)

[3] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wiki_software)

[4] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software)

Update: added links

<comment><AUTHOR> Actually, all this tools you mentioned are great but based on wiki mechanism/technology.

I'm just thinking if out there are something that solves all problems that wiki solves but is not "wiki based".

I'm looking for a paradigm shift.

<comment><USER2> Maybe we could define it as "collaborative editing of information".

Wikis is one technology, maybe tagging (and voting) is other technology, multiuser editors, mmm in the late days we can see "inline comments" too...

The way wikis solves that, is adding certain ingredients as "revision history".

There is a tool nowadays by excellence, for "revision history", and it's named "git". In the late days people speaks a lot about "github for writers" and things like.

Google apps, and alternatives, offer a step further (i.e. you can use google- sites as wikis with permissions, but integrating rich widgets).

mmm

We could say that stackoverflow and etc are a wiki based on questions/responses/comments...

I could prefer a CLI wiki (that you can edit with vim, render from markdown to ASCII colors, and query with ack or grep). But I don't know if this paradigm could be considered a "shift". Maybe it already exists, just that I haven't used it.

First thing you should consider in whatever platform/solution you're thinking is:

a) Attribution. Do you prefer to enable anonymous contributions, or do you prefer gpg signed ones?

b) Content access. Are you thinking about public wikis, private wikis ? This may change totally the solution...

Maybe a paradigm shift may emerge if you look at new devices... smartphones, etc... is a "mediawiki" a nice solution to "collaborative editing" on a smartphone ? doe it take advantage of the device capabilities?

Regards.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> what do you want to store? who's gonna use it? why not use a wiki?

if it's about collaborative working on a long text: perhaps plain text-files and a version control system like git is the way to go?

if you want to discuss about a medium-length text, you could use a etherpad.

[http://etherpad.org/](http://etherpad.org/) \- example: [http://piratenpad.de/p/hackernews](http://piratenpad.de/p/hackernews)

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> Nice thoughts! When I think about wiki, I think about team work. After read yours comments I could find (googling) a proprietary solution called Confluence[1]. Maybe it's what I'm looking for. Lets see...

[1] [https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence](https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence)

</comment><comment><USER4> You might want to try to specify which problems, in your eyes, a wiki solves, and maybe also which ones are inadequately solved by a wiki but that you want to be solved.

Otherwise you're essentially asking "I want something like X, but not X", which will probably not lead to any paradigm shift as you seem to be looking for...</comment>


Facebook 1: 0 Simon Cowell - Rage Against The Machine is UK #1 single for Xmas - <AUTHOR> http://www.sheamus.co.uk/ratm-xmas-number-one <comment><AUTHOR> Why we might care: for the last several years the winner of Cowell's reality TV show has been propelled immediately to #1 in time for the culturally- significant-for-Brits Xmas Top 40.

This year a backlash campaign to shove 'Killing in the Name' above it took off on Facebook and, in an unlikely outcome, the people who joined the group actually followed through and bought the RATM track during the correct time window.

(The link was posted before the programme aired on BBC Radio 1 and turned out to be completely accurate.)

<comment><USER2> Strange how this explanation changes a flagged post into a genuinely interesting one.

<comment><USER3> If the submission can't be understood within its own context, then the title should indeed have been more explicit.

<comment><USER4> Sometimes it's difficult to be succinct in < 80.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Personally I don't care about the views of Simon Cowell. I doubt that the music charts accurately reflect what people are actually listening to, due to the diversity of ways in which music can now be obtained and played.

<comment><USER6> The musical angle is secondary. The real story is that a centralized cultural influence (Cowell) was overshadowed by a distributed cultural influence (Facebook).

<comment><USER7> There is slightly more to it than just centralized vs distributed. Consider the demographics. X-Factor viewers as a group are probably poorer, older and less educated* than Facebook users. The recent cold spell, the BBC speculates, meant fewer people who would have bought the X-factor single could get to a store to do so - even if a Facebooker wanted a physical CD, he or she would simply order it from Amazon and not care when it arrived, since the sale would be logged. At 79p for a single on iTunes, Facebook users could fix the UK charts _every week_ without even noticing the expenditure in time or money. However what the X-factor has is people who really will loyally buy its single every year; the Facebook crowd has a very short attention span.

* I don't mean this in a disparaging way at all.

<comment><USER8> What are you estimating as the demographics for each?

As a 30 something alternative music type the RATM campaign was big on my facebook page. At least back in 2007 the xfactor was big with the 16-34 age group. So about the same age group, I'd have thought.

[http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560802/X-Factor- back...](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560802/X-Factor-back-with- record-breaking-audience.html)

Poorer, I'm not sure. The Xfactor crowd does seem less geeky/bookish than the ratm crowd, from the people I have met.

What this all means I'm not quite sure. Perhaps we will see the start of micro payment campaigns. 40p to support some cause is not much. You just have to make it have wide enough appeal.

<comment><USER7> I'm talking about the single-buyers. Lots of people watch these talent shows just for the trainwrecks. The people who take the X-factor seriously are the sort of people who'd watch a show just because it's presented by Ant and Dec... The people who buy whatever mass-produced focus-grouped auto-tuned rubbish the singles chart is normally full of.

I'd imagine the other sort of person who'd buy a single by "Joe" is the same demographically who'd buy one by say Cliff Richard.

<comment><USER8> Weird, I always though of xfactor single-buyers as young people (future pop wannabees) hoping to catch a bit of the star factor of the people they had been voting for.

Looking for more data I came across this

[http://www.bpi.co.uk/members-area/article/bpi-statistical- ha...](http://www.bpi.co.uk/members-area/article/bpi-statistical-handbook- members-downloads.aspx)

It suggests that in 2008 95% of singles were downloaded. So I doubt the weather had much to do with it. Still no demographics on who actually buys cds normally though.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I'm sure Simon is crying all the way to the bank over this.

<comment><USER10> I think the real point is that it puts the next series of xFactor in jeopardy.

It's a signal that a lot of the public are sick to death of the formulaic rubbish tossed out by these reality shows.

So if I was Simon, I'd be pretty worried now.

<comment><USER11> It still sold about 10 times as many as the single at the number three spot...

<comment><USER10> People don't make money from singles sales anymore :/ The money from sales is petty cash.

Compare that with the Tour, the advertising income from the next series of xfactor, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> Facebook:1 Simon Cowell:0 ?

<comment><USER13> The syntax in the headline is common outside the US. eg: <http://livescore.com/>

<comment><USER11> It's used in score listings, so that you can read down a colum of numbers side by side, but I don't remember ever seeing it used in prose. I'm quite sure it is normally "foo: 1, bar: 0"...

<comment><USER14> You're wrong. Here is another example: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/8377195.st...](http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/eng_prem/8377195.stm)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Still, stuff like this makes me excited again about seeing the next 40 years unfold ...

</comment><comment><USER16> Why we might care: We now have every right to put on "Killing in the name of" in response to tired, vacuous and bland xmas songs that are a pain to tolerate every year.

</comment><comment><USER17> I'm in favor of anything relating to RATM. Brings me back, infact, I think I'll listen to some right now. :-)

</comment><comment><USER18> Rage performs live on the BBC, including a surprise ending that shouldn't have been a surprise to anyone. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lx19x9xPB8o>

</comment><comment><USER19> You know, I thought pop music might've turned a corner a few years ago when producers were starting to use more electronic elements in pop. I thought there'd be some decent, slightly innovative pop music coming out in the future. I was mistaken.

<comment><USER20> I'm a little confused by this comment. Electronic elements have been a mainstay of pop production for a quarter of a century.

<comment><USER21> You and me both, sexy cakes.

<comment><USER20> Upvoted for calling me sexy cakes.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


A Solution to the Fundamental Problem of Micropayments. - <AUTHOR>

The psychological barrier to spending "anything" versus nothing is often said to be the fundamental roadblock in the way of micropayments.
I propose a site where one would subscribe and deposit a fixed amount each month, which would then be divvied up and distributed to sites based on up-votes which the user delivers through an embeddable widget, a la Reddit.
This would remove the psychological cost of micropayment transactions, since each "payment" does not affect the amount of money the user will spend. <comment><USER2> The fundamental problem is one of marketing and convenience.

A tip jar at the counter of Starbucks is unobtrusive, entirely voluntary, and convenient. You see, decide, pay, done. The idea of a tip jar is widely accepted.

To reach the same level of acceptance, micropayments need to come with the browser. They should also be voluntary.

</comment><comment><USER3> I don't see how this get around the fact that merchant fees will be 10, 20, or 30% of the amount sent to the website/corp/user that ultimately receives the payment. If you pay the "wrapper" site (what I'm calling the site you propose) $30 and it has to be divvied up x times, the wrapper site pays $1-$2 in processing fees to receive the money. They then take a cut and divvy the remaining money. Let's make it $25. If there are 25 sites to pay $1 each, what payment method does the wrapper site employ so that the merchant payment fees don't make it unprofitable? This is a lot like that piratebay "donations" scheme earlier this month.

<comment><USER4> The middleman aggregates payments across customers and time, so it sends a few large payments to each site.

<comment><USER3> Ok - makes sense. Definitely a win for the middle man - they earn interest on OPM until the payout period.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> That's like Contenture, except Contenture is easier because you don't have to vote.

<comment><AUTHOR> Their site appears dead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> sounds a lot like tipjoy.</comment>


Database development mistakes made by application developers - <AUTHOR> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/621884/database-development-mistakes-made-by-application-developers

<comment><USER2> That was a very good list. There aren't too many database discussion around here.</comment>


Songs of the IBM - <AUTHOR> http://www.robweir.com/blog/2011/06/songs-of-the-ibm.html

<comment><USER2> Not quite a secret: IBM's official archive has the 1935 edition as well as some .WAV files (!) and pictures. [http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_room....](http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_room.html)

And explanatory text: [http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_intro...](http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/exhibits/music/music_intro.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> A favorite of mine is the Sametime song!

<http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/stwiki.nsf/dx/Sametime_Song>

</comment><comment><USER4> As an IBM intern, nothing has made me happier than reading this.

Now I just wish HN had a downvote button so I could get it off the front page and make sure I'm the only one on my team who knows about it, haha

<comment><USER5> You can downvote once you reach 500 karma. Now get cracking!

<comment><USER6> Only comments. You still can't downvote stories.

<comment><USER5> Ah, I didn't know that.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Here's a little more (well sort of) modern corporate anthem, from Sun.

<http://anthems.zdnet.co.uk/anthems/sun.mp3>

Lyrics here: <http://www.zdnet.com/it-anthems-the-power-of-sun-3002133207/>

<comment><USER8> Huey Lewis rocked! I heard the opening bars and I couldn't help grinning.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> There is a common pattern here: Leaderships like CEOs or presidents set up an inanimate conceptual objects such as companies or countries to symbolize their ideals. The primary objective seems to motivate rank and file to work for these symbols and indirectly for them by having rank and file believe that they represents those symbols. It's funny how subtly of leadership has common patterns across small startup to large countries to activists groups.

</comment><comment><USER10> This practice is still common in China. If you walk early in the morning you can often see groups of employees in uniform singing or dancing.

<comment><USER11> I was in Beijing until a few days ago. One morning, I saw some of the hotel's staff lined up in front of their manager, reciting something in one voice. Later on, I asked a girl at the reception desk what that was but she couldn't understand me. Now I know. Thanks :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> I worked at a startup purchased by IBM and they had everyone sing a few of these songs during the first indoc session (year: 2010).

</comment><comment><USER13> There goes my favorite trivia question. There are really few people at IBM who know about this past tradition. Actually, I don't know if there is still an IBM chorus, perhaps it is still being kept alive.

</comment><comment><USER14> The docudrama 'The pirates of Silicon Valley' has a small clip with some IBM employees singing some song. I thought it was a one off thing.

<comment><USER15> Came here to post the same. Interesting bit of history, to know that it was actually a thing.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> Wow ! These songs remind me of "traditional school songs" that a lot of universities have.

</comment><comment> guard-of-terra Dude, that's pretty f~-d up right here! (c) Stan Marsh</comment>


GDPR adtech complaints keep stacking up in Europe - <AUTHOR> https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/20/gdpr-adtech-complaints-keep-stacking-up-in-europe/ <comment><USER2> I just leave any site with adtech 'consent' overlays like Techcrunch.

Hopefully, if enough people abandon sites that use dark patterns and invasive tracking tech, the industry will get the message that these technologies are unethical and even illegal.

<comment><USER3> This is like saying in 1950 that companies will take the lead out of gasoline if we all stop driving.

<comment><USER4> It's a little easier to stop visiting a website than it is to stop driving a car in US.

<comment><USER5> I wonder though! If you were to give every American today an ultimatum that they had to either (1) never drive a car again or (2) never use the internet again, what percentage would take each side of the deal?

<comment><USER6> But websites are _on_ the internet, they're not _the_ internet.

<comment><USER7> Yes, thank you for using your Gopher client to post this highly relevant and on-topic comment that none of us had already known since forever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> What is a reliable way to make money from free articles (other than NY times - style limited articles)? As in, what ad networks can you set up that only use the content of the page to target ads? At this point, if you don't use Google Ads (adsense), your advertiser pool drops significantly and you'll likely be making less money overall.

<comment><USER9> The same way publications made money for two centuries without tracking and "personalization", by displaying advertising relevant to the content and the publication's target audience.

<comment><USER10> This does not work as well. If you take any machine learning model for ads, "content" related features are way less predictive than "user" related features. ie who you are matters more than what you're currently reading.

[Disclosure: I've built a lot of these models in the past]

<comment><USER11> It seems to have worked better than well for New York Times: [https://digiday.com/media/gumgumtest-new-york-times-gdpr- cut...](https://digiday.com/media/gumgumtest-new-york-times-gdpr-cut-off-ad- exchanges-europe-ad-revenue/)

Do you think it's not repeatable?

<comment><USER12> > except for privacy-minded users

...that's like saying "high standards of medicine are bad except for hygiene- minded users." The fact that the user has other concerns in their life doesn't change the fact that it's still bad for them.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> Sadly the article doesn't mention any complaints against TechCrunch/Oath's non-compliant consent request.

I've looked into how you file a complaint with the UK information commissioner about that sort of think but there doesn't seem to be a way unfortunately.

<comment><USER14> Might be worth shooting an email to firstname.lastname@example.com ?

Tempted to do this myself, the Oath GDPR notices are the worst, with no visible controls and a warren of useless links.

<comment><USER15> I emailed ico about an issue, they told me to get in touch with the company, who ignored me. I followed up with ICO again, and didn't hear anything after. Was really disappointed.

<comment><USER16> Try letters on paper?

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> Ok, given the ads hate on HN this will be a pretty unpopular opinion here but... RTB is a good thing. It ensures that Google and FB don't become even _more_ monopolies. Open ad exchanges ensure better efficiency of offer and demand and a somewhat middle ground between publishers and advertisers. In theory, it also ensures an alignment of incentives: higher quality ads (because advertisers want ads that perform better whereas publishers don't care as much on average, as long as they get paid)... Which of course comes at a privacy cost. Remove or erode RTB (as it has been the case over the years with FB closing its ad exchange, Youtube not even offering an exchange etc) and you'll see the nightmarish closed web we all dread: all the long tail of websites won't be able to monetize anymore, and everyone will be at the mercy of Google and FB for any content to be published (AMP etc.). I'm sure Google and FB lawyers are super happy about GDPR: EU is helping them entrench their monopolies.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that in the current state of things, you cannot complain about "ads are evil and don't work", "Google and FB are monopolies" and "I want privacy" at the same time. The three are linked. If you push for privacy, you'll hurt open web (because you'll consolidate advertising to Google and Facebook which are on the publishers side so have less incentives to make ads work because they fully control inventory).

Patreon, Brave BAT and crypto etc. are good ideas to change the fundamental economics of the web. But in the status quo, we cannot have everything: privacy AND free services like Google and Facebook AND these companies not being monopolies interested in data collection.

[Disclosure: I've built a lot of ads targeting models in the past for a living]

<comment><USER17> I also had something to do with the RTB ecosystem. You have a point, but I was also impressed at how low the standards were, how cheaply you could target an immense amount of people, and how nothing is enforced.

A total nobody could easily spend O($1000) and serve malware to millions of people, served out of his own ad server. If he was going through a DSP there would be some sort of approval of ads but no enforcement that the same ad was the one actually being served. This was when Flash was still around and unsandboxed on most browsers and buggy as hell.

Oh, and the industry-standard self-hosted ad server was a PHP thing which carried a backdoor for months/years before anyone noticed. Someone just replaced the tarball on the developer's site and went unnoticed.

And the people selling data... do most people know that this is possible: you buy a car, offline, at company X. They have your phone number. You visit website Y, type your phone number. You visit site Z, they can buy your phone number from website Y, and match that to your phone from the car company which sold your data to third-party W, and know for a fact which car you bought. No profiling, statistics, guessing, inference. They have the actual data. Costs O($0.25).

This was years ago, frankly I doubt things improved and I doubt they are as cash-rich now.

<comment><USER18> > This was years ago, frankly I doubt things improved

It has improved immensely wherever GDPR is in place.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> I was thinking, maybe it's a great thing the web cannot be monetized on a gigantic scale? Maybe it's not too late to turn the tide against tracking, censorship and thought-policing going on on the internet if the giant tech corps cannot earn money on it anymore.

That leaves just the governments, but hey, it seems like a step in the right direction...

Naive I know.

</comment><comment><USER20> It would be great if there was a comprehensive analysis about how much money was spend complying with GDPR and what the resulting benefits to privacy are.

<comment><USER21> That's not actually how the law works though.

Restaurants lose a lot of money throwing out food that's probably good enough by the standards that most of us use in our kitchens at home but because there was an excursion in the fridge temperature of 2c or whatever the law says they have to throw it out.

They could make a lot more money if they didn't have to do that, especially if chefs were allowed some discretion in when things are "out of date" like they used to have prior to food safety laws.

However, as a society we actually don't want chefs to have that discretion because although we might trust an individual chef we sure don't trust every chef. So we set rules for restaurants because we would rather have some restaurants go bankrupt and there be fewer restaurants around than have everyone risk eating food that might be below standard every time they go out. Instead, we set an objective baseline criteria for food standards.

Same thing with privacy. Your personal standard of privacy may or may not be higher than my personal standard of privacy, but society-wide we don't want privacy to be a roulette wheel or a tragedy of the commons, so we set an objective standard for it.

That may or may not bankrupt some ad-tech companies who are reliant on the dodgy-chef techniques, but that's not a loss to society as a whole any more than losing dodgy restaurants would be.

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Has anyone actually been fined in a significant way as a result of GDPR?

<comment><USER23> An hospital in Portugal was fined €400k for allowing its staff to access patient records without proper safeguards. I think that's the highest so far, but many cases are still being analyzed.

<comment><USER24> Wasn't that kind of thing prohibited long before the GDPR based on medical privacy laws?

<comment><USER23> Most things in the GDPR were already prohibited by the Data Protection Directive, but not the amounts of the fines and such.

<comment><USER25> Which is the reason most Europeans were talking of GDPR as though it was a non-event in the many HN discussions. Every European business had been doing it for decades under data protection. GDPR cleaned up a few definitions, expanded a few new uses and abuses of personal data, and the headline maximum possible fine. The fine that was almost the only thing people wanted to fixate on.

In the run-up, the best guide to GDPR was UK ICO's guide to 1998 data protection with a few GDPR annotations.

<comment><USER26> > _Which is the reason most Europeans were talking of GDPR as though it was a > non-event in the many HN discussions. Every European business had been doing > it for decades under data protection._

You must live in a different Europe than I do, because I'm pretty sure that most companies that don't deal with the internet, don't even know what privacy they're required to provide. People still regularly use gmail for some business tasks, they openly list data that shouldn't be shared etc. I don't think what you said is true at all. I think most companies simply don't know that they're in violation in some way or another.

<comment><USER25> Not every company I've dealt with, or worked for has been net based. All have had some sort of awareness of Data Protection. Obviously, there were also exemptions for the smallest businesses. Sometimes awareness was simply a weekend going through DPA and deciding they were small enough to be exempt.

The biggest problem with Data Protection was the maximum penalty, and that it had no teeth for data that moved out of area. It simply wasn't enough for the larger corporations to care that much - unless they were purely national. Hence some companies being fined multiple times for the same failings. I don't believe there's a Shell, Philips, Siemens or Glaxo that didn't have awareness, data protection officer and so on.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> From a user perspective, GDPR has no impact so far. I am still being tracked to death wherever I go.

Neither do companies offer me a way to get the data they have about me.

This guy has been trying to get his Facebook data for 4 months now:

[https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/](https://ruben.verborgh.org/facebook/)

Will be interesting to see if he keeps at it and how it turns out in the end.

<comment><USER28> It's very early days, legally speaking, right? I imagine they are still mostly sending out warning notices, and collecting evidence of violations for the most part. In a few years, if a few stonking fines are handed out (which I think there will be) we'll see what's what.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> If most of some companies revenue come from selling analytics of user data, is the maximum 4% GDPR fine enough to force all these companies to be compliant?

<comment><USER23> The process doesn't stop with the fine, they're still required to become compliant, and further violations can lead to more fines.

<comment><USER30> Seems like a valid business model would be to sue yourself, plead guilty, and pay the 4% tax every year. Legal fees would be minimized by playing both sides.

<comment><USER31> I love armchair legal advice

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> So basically I can't use techcrunch unless I consent to letting them use my data for advertising? Doesn't this violate GDPR?

<comment><USER33> Well the thing about jurisdiction is that it is utterly toothless if they aren't in reach - hence the lack of arrest of Wikipedia editors for Tiananmen Square contributions. It is kind of embarrassing really.

Even if "advertising to EU citizens" put them in reach it wouldn't give the outcome they want - that would likely turn into a full block if they see no benefit to it and compliance costs.

<comment><USER34> And this is why _we are forced_ (speaking for myself and a few more) to use PrivacyBadger (on which I keep adding domains), NoScript, AdblockPlus, ublock, and others.

It is a democracy. The many will win if they want to. I understand the unethical part of 'consuming content for free' which costs them $. But there they picked to go to the extreme end of loading a simple piece of news with 10+ trackers.

On TC I get 14 hits on my PrivacyBadger, 9 hits on NoScript, and 2 hits on ABP. If one day that '25 violations' go down to 2-3, I will consider letting them go with it.

<comment><USER35> There is no "forced" here. For most news sites, you can just not read them, and it's fine, really.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> What is the point of the GDPR if it is not enforced?

<comment><USER34> Wait until it starts raining penalties.. Adtech that gets busted will either comply (shrink evil profits), die (won't be able to handle the profit loss), or move to greener pastures (keep their practices away from us).

<comment><USER26> But those penalties will also screw over most of the sites people are using in the EU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER37> Step 1: Give my data to someone.

Step 2: That someone uses it to their benefit.

Step 3: Complain to the authorities.

<comment><USER8> You don't go to websites in order to give your data to them, you go to websites to consume the content they're displaying. The role is more similar to this:

1\. go to a restaurant, eat, give wait(ress|er) credit card to pay for food

2\. wait(ress|er) uses it to pay for the food, but also takes a picture of credit card front and back, then later uses it to buy an expensive TV

3\. complain to the authorities (or your bank) about the fraud

<comment><USER26> But your browser _does_ give out your data. A website doesn't know anything about you until your browser sends them some data. That's not the case in your restaurant example, because the waiter has eyes. He gets information from you by your mere presence whether you want it or not. That's not the case on the internet.

To be clear, I think some privacy regulation is necessary, but there seems to be some kind of dissonance. People want a service, but are unwilling to pay for it nor give their data. Then they complain to the government that they should be able to get the service without payment anyway.

<comment><USER38> Uh the browser runs code that comes from the website.

The website decides what the browser sends more than the user does.

<comment><USER37> The website doesn't decide, the browser does. The website merely suggests what could be sent by the browser.

<comment><USER38> That's a pointless technicality and irrelevant to the discussion. Largely as irrelevant as claiming that it's not my software that's spying on you, it's your CPU and my software is just suggesting your CPU what to do.

For the past two decades browsers have been extended year after year to better run arbitrary applications delivered via the website. New tracking techniques crop up all the time and anti-tracking won't keep up, and often can't do much without breaking compatibility with the existing sites, not something browser vendors are willing to do, except when it serves Google's ends.

<comment><USER37> > That's a pointless technicality and irrelevant to the discussion. Largely as > irrelevant as claiming that it's not my software that's spying on you, it's > your CPU and my software is just suggesting your CPU what to do.

It would be irrelevant if we weren't talking about laws, but we are (GDPR).

If I tell someone to kill themselves, should I be punished as if I had actually killed that person with my own hands? Obviously no. In fact, I shouldn't be punished at all for saying that. Some people might disagree, but those people either applying their moral values inconsistently or they want to live in a totalitarian regime.

Technicalities are life or death when talking about law.

<comment><USER38> > Technicalities are life or death when talking about law.

Yeah right. It's not that I killed you, but you reacted to a bullet in such a way. It's not that I stole passwords and files from your server, it was your server that happily gave me all that data after I sent it some bytes.

The spirit of the law takes precedence over technicalities.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Pichi – An application-layer proxy which can be controlled via API - pichi-router https://github.com/pichi-router/pichi <comment><AUTHOR> This looks pretty cool, although it's missing a little more explanation on how to actually use it. I think the API section doesn't have enough information.

<comment> pichi-router Please follow the link ([https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis/pichi-router/pichi- api/1.2](https://app.swaggerhub.com/apis/pichi-router/pichi-api/1.2)) to get full API document, or some suggestions in detail are welcome.

<comment><USER2> First, thanks for creating and sharing this. Second, I'd like to offer some thoughts related to what you said above ("some suggestions in detail are welcome"):

You describe it as:

1) An application-layer proxy

2) Which can be controlled by an API

The README and the Swagger API docs do a reasonable job of explaining #2. But it doesn't include much about #1.

First-time visitors might find it helpful if you started off by explaining the basics:

\- What are some situation in which you might want to use this?

\- What was your motivation for creating this? (What were you using before, and what was missing that made you want something different?)

\- An example of how to set it up for a simple use case (not just how to install pichi, but how to point the other software to it (e.g. what protocol do clients use to talk to Pichi?)

For example, let's say I install Pichi, and then use the API to point it to several SS servers. What do I do next? How do connect my web browser to Pichi so that the traffic goes via those servers?

<comment> pichi-router Thanks for these comments.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER2> Is this an alternative to using HAProxy + SS + URL whitelists/blacklists?

<comment> pichi-router Not fully. Cons I think so far might contain:

1\. much lower performance than HAProxy; 2\. there is no direct design for white/black lists, which has to be setup mannually and carefully; 3\. only IP range, domain name, country of IP, regex pattern of domain are supported, no URL yet; 4\. no UDP support yet.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> What is an application-layer proxy?

<comment> pichi-router Just proxy

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Piči (pronounced pichi) is a common Slovak cussword, it means (to) vagina.

<comment><USER5> Fascinating. Do you have an opinion on if they should keep name or not?

I'm in favor.

<comment><USER4> Mám v piči (I don't care)</comment></comment></comment>